Black Hog Down
Hog’s Head Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoyed several doses at this brewery's "taproom" at Calgary Beerfest 2014. These guys had a fantastic setup by the way, probably more offerings than any other brewery there and all from kegs. Thank you! The present focus was a vastly dark, near-opaque black with the most scant brown and yellow highlights near the bottom of the glass. Some tan head present and accounted for but nothing too showy. Aroma was rather sweet, more caffe latte than espresso, rich with roasted and caramel malts accompanied by some berry and licorice notes. Although the brewery had this listed as a Russian Imperial, I agree with the classification here (to the extent that these styles can truly be parsed). This was rich, sweet, and moderately roasted, with little of the booze expected in a bona-fide Russian imperial. Although the coffee and cacao powder notes obviously jump out, things become sweeter as the bitterness receptors start to habituate and some doughy licorice drop, toffee, and rum-raisin flavors add additional complexity. Not husky or acrid. Mouthfeel is smooth and creamy, moderately carbonated and featuring a sweet finish, cream and light coffee grounds with more caramel or toffee. I sampled a fair number of brews this year and this one really stood out for me. The flavors are bold and rich but there is a pleasing "refined" vibe to this, with no black barley/burnt coffee napalming of the taste buds and the sweeter flavors being allowed to shine forth. This brewery is interesting. Here they execute something with a deft touch and then without skipping a beat they cremate your mouth with something like Hopslayer (see that review). Although perhaps kinks remain to be ironed out, they do have at least one staunch supporter here to the south.

 

12oz glass at Beer Revolution YEGDT. Hog's Head carries on with their punny pop-culture beer names - this one evokes images of porcine news reports, or something.

This beer appears a solid abyssal black, with the barest of diluted cola 'highlights', and one skinny finger of bubbly and loosely foamy off-white head (I hate discerning this metric from bar pours, just sayin'), which leaves a bit of random spectral lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of semi-sweet, roasted bready and caramel malt, black licorice, bittersweet cocoa, perky black fruit, a bit of free-agent ashiness, and a nicely cold, um, alcohol 'warmth'. The taste is much more dense - gritty toasted caramel and toffee malt, dry chocolate, day-old coffee, Nordic licorice, soused dark bruised fruit, biscuity crackers, and a decent leafy, earthy, and well-perfumed hoppiness (that 19-proof booze has to manifest somehow).

The carbonation is actually pretty active, in a genially edgy manner, the body a hefty medium-full weight, and mostly smooth, the pricks and prods of the bristling alcohol becoming harder and harder to ignore - yet I could still speak of a certain creaminess as well. It finishes on the sweet side, certainly, but nothing really out there, ya know? Enough hop and booze foot soldiers remain to keep things on an even, if still well-elevated keel.

I wanted to justify why I'm only deeming this as a merely 'good' version of the style (I picked the Yankee rendition over the RIS one due to this brewery's predilection for all things hoppy), but now I don't have to: bar music kismet has saved me the work, in the form of forgettable 90's popsters Better Than Ezra, and their simple as sin ditty 'Good'. 'Nuff said, enough said indeed.